The monsters look a lot better when they aren't cel-shaded, and the designs are very colorful and cool-looking, especially the revamped Joker. The most terrifying monster I've seen so far is the Beaklon/Ogyo, though. Try it out.

The five-monster system is a welcome innovation but the game moves a lot slower as a result, because you're running back and forth between five training devices just praising/scolding and feeding. A streamlined menu approach for each monster would have been a lot more intuitive, and speed up the flow.

The dungeon sections are like Dark Cloud except really generic in design and dull; again, much like Dark Cloud.

You can't unfreeze monsters in the Lab any more. Once they're frozen, they're automatically retired and can only be used for combining. I guess this was to curtail the cheap money method with old monsters, but still, it's pretty annoying to have to kill off one of your monsters just because you want to swap out.

The new counter system is fun. Your attacks can be executed with either the [], X, or O button, and the button history is tracked on the side of the screen. Once you reach a certain event, you learn how to counter by holding L2 and guessing which button your opponent is going to use to execute the next attack. If you guess right, you counter and take no damage; if you fail, you're guaranteed to take the hit. This adds a nice dynamic to the slow monster vs. speedy monster battles. Pixies can't just chip away at Golems until time expires, knowing the Golems can't hit them.

The Antlans are awesome. After my original team dies (Garu, Mogi, Beaklon, Antlan and Gitan) I want to raise an all-Antlan team just for the hell of it.

I've been playing for a week now. I like it, but like you said the 5 monsters thing really slows things down. Regardless, being able to have money coming in on almost any week I want either through tournaments or expeditions helps with the management.

My guys (Garu, Henger, Durahan, Ripper, Tiger) are moving along nicely, at least the first three with the Garu in A class, and Henger & Durahan in B. Because I'm focusing on them, the other two are getting a little ignored.

Recommended buy if you're a fan of the series, and rent if you haven't. The lower classes are easy enough as to not crush the spirits of new players immediately, so you can get a fair way through over a weekend.

Normally, I'd be the first one on this thread, but (a) my wife just had surgery and I've had my hands full taking care of her, and (b) I _still_ can't... stop... playing... Disgaea when free time permits.

I was surprised to see that the cover art was changed to Attack of the 50-Foot Suezo when I saw it at EB yesterday. I'll pick it up sometime soon.

"There were times when I intensely wanted to walk out of the theater and into the fresh air and look at the sky and buy an apple and sigh for our civilization, but I stuck it out." -- Roger Ebert

I got this on Friday and spent my Thanksgiving weekend in an orgy of Monster Rancher goodness. I actually like the slower raising of five monsters, it keeps the weeks from just disappearing by the way they would in MR2. This time there is almost always something going on each week. Currently, the Garu I started off with is an kick ass ass-kicking machine, but I'm really loving the antlan I got off the MR4 disk- if you haven't tried it out yet I highly recomend it! Can anyone recommend some goood monsters/disks to try? I haven't found anything too cool off of my DVDs and CDS yet, but I still have more to try.

Unfortunately I got completely consumed by Final Fantasy X-2, and haven't really given the game a fair shake. I made it up to C level, and then kind of tapered off.

By the way, if you're looking for a secret monster off a fairly common PS2 Game

Spoiler Below: Highlight text to read

You get a car from Grand Turismo 3

.

It's nothing special, but it was a neat find.

(edited by Excalibur05 on 1.12.03 1115)Wisconsin Badgers: 7-5 (Pop Quiz: 3rd and 6, 15 seconds left in the game, you're down by 6. What play do you run? What do you mean a 3 yard pass down the middle?)

Minnesota Vikings: 7-4 (Thank God for the inneptness that is the Detroit Lions, now go out there and beat Green Bay.)

Beat the story part of the game on Saturday morning with a 1st generation Glacier (Durahan/Tiger). Trying not to spoil too much, below is an explanation of what I beat:

Spoiler Below: Highlight text to read

I was able to defeat the big boss in the 4th exploration area with the said Glacier, the Garu/Garu from the beginning and a straight Henger. You don't have to beat "S" class and win the big traditional "Big 4" type tournaments, but to get to the end of the story, you do need to beat "A" class to unlock the final explorations.

I expect to start on some new 1st generation creatures in the next few days, depending on when I have time to do so.

Zzz.Two disks that everyone seems to have that produce awesome monsters: Dark Cloud 2 gives you the Ray (Zan/Lesione), a really sleek-looking turquoise humanoid, and Disgaea gives you the Beerock (Beaklon/Golem), a big bug made out of granite.

And M2M's Shades of Purple gave me a Blakkus, the Antlan/Joker which looks incredibly badass. It's my sister's CD, though, I swear.